...they shall march out of my laboratory and sweep away every adversary, every creed, every nation, until the very planet is in the loving grip of the Pax Bisonica. And then peace will reign, and the world, and all humanity, shall bow to me in humble gratitude...

The psychic presence was angry! The psychic presence had taken the bait! This was hilarious to Cue, and it resolved to bounce around even more vigorously due to the attention, as well as find some way to really grind the gears of this strange entity. Perhaps opportunities for killer pranks would present themselves, who knew?

Defend with Telekinesis by being too fast and erratic: 3d6= 9 Be Troublesome for the Psychic presence by being where it really doesn't want me or doing something it really doesn't want me to do: 2d6= 6

"Bollocks!", Emille swore as she watched the remnants of her pack rain down around her. The contents were worth a fair bit of gold. At least according to Marius she had good chances of finding enough treasure to make up for it here. Retribution would have to wait, the kobolds were launching another wave of arrows. She did her best to duck and weave around the arrows.

An opening presented itself. She recognized the armor the kobolds were wearing from her studies. Magitek. Usually made out of some sort of ceramic, Marius taught. Unless one had a club or hammer capable of shattering it outright, it was best to go for the gaps. Emille unsheathed her estoc with a single deft motion and began to dance through the ranks of the armored kobolds, goring them through the weak points in their fancy armor.

[Goblin One Battalion]
Kobolds. Kobolds everywhere. Ancestral rivals since time immemorial, the Goblins went into a frenzy, pushing and clawing at the Face to let them all out at once. It was only to happy too relent, the mass of greenskins washing over the magi-tek armoured scalies like a gross tsunami.

The slaughter was utterly one-sided, with Kobold limbs raining every which way. Without their precious quenching field, they were helpless to resist!

A few goblins, however, decided that mid battle was a perfectly adequate time to loot. They set into what bodies they could find, hoping to salvage some of the choicest tech for their own army. Now where was that Salvaging Expert?

Ah, there he was, ol' Shakylegs McGree, twitchiest gobbo this side of anywhere. The very top-choice goblin for such sensitive, delicate work. The other goblins pushed him into an already sparking, on-blue-fire suit and told him to 'get on with it!'. McGree looked more than ready.

meep

A deep gouge was left in the beach, where the sea water would sooner or later trickle in. No trace of either Kobold or Goblin was left in the hole, and most of the sand therein had fused into glass.
[Your terrible roll and arm-spasm conspire against you, striking at the least opportune time! Not only have you exploded all those fancy armours you were going to loot, you also shamed yourself in front of your ancient enemy!
You gain the [Shame: Bad Engineers] wound and additionally give everyone in melee range a -1d6 one round modifier for defense for this round, as they are reeling from the explosion!]

--

[Pippin Bogleech]
A blinding light overwhelms you from further downshore, the Goblins having tinkered with something they perhaps aught not have. Everyone knows Orkses better for lootin', anyway.
You snort, in part to fry your brain with spices and in part in a general mockery of your lesser cousins.

Kobolds flew every which way, as they weere pounded into the ground by a giant rolling pin. Still they kept coming, dozens more from every direction. Pippin grinned, there would be a lot of meat for the coming victory feast.

[How do buffs work you ask? Great question! Apparently like this: You can buff an attack action power with another one of your powers, by beating that power with one of your skills!

--

[Emille]
Emille knew the Kobolds had the advantage at range, so she dodged, jumped, spun and pirouetted through their attacks until she found herself at the base of the tower.
From there, she could fight them on her own terms; in full Swashbuckling splendour, hanging from a magi-tek mast at the edge of a cliff with magical explosions going of in the background!

For all their high quality ceramagics, they were no match for good old fashioned swordswomanship. Her Starmetal Eostoc probably helped as well, as once again it proved 'on point' when faced with heavily armoured opponents.

--

[Cue]
The Fiendish Eightball was feelin especially feisty, and so did NOT outright attack. Instead, it zipped around the battlefield playing hard to get all the while Kobolds and Goblins died all around it.
Sooner or later the Psychic presence would reveal itself again, and then Cue would get really annoying.

--

[King Norman]
Reduced to a frothing rage like his ancient ancestor, King Norsemen, the King wielded his own words like a Knight wielded a Sword, and his spectral pal Scepter the Spectre took his words to heart; and to fight.

Whatever the presence was doing, you seems to have stopped it for now. A nasty setback for team Kobold!

--

[Mêlée Kobolds / Everyone at the Shore]
Bloodied and confused and with no clear leaderhsip in sight, the Kobolds fall into infighting as much as they do outfighting, dispersing in all directions. Some of the more enterprising ones try to wrest EGG from Cues control.

With all the cover in between them, getting out of harms way is easy, but even then the sheer number of foes pushes her back and soon one particularly gumptious beast lands behind her and starts clawing at her leg.
She kicks it off, the Kobold falling to its doom far below, but not before taking a nasty wound herself. What she wouldn't give for a professional alchemist right now.

[Emille takes 1 rank of damage to her acrobatics skill!]

--

[The Enkoridii]
Taking advantage of the disoriented, fleeing Kobold masses, the Enkoridii swarm like a flock of buffalo, unrelenting in their desire of blood!

But if it was one thing their armour was good at, it was withstanding blows from their own weapons. Even if those weapons happened to have been enchanted with clayform spiderlegs.

--

[Everyone]
With Kobolds leaving the shore mostly in many viciously separated parts, it looks like the battle is over and done with for the most part. That is, except for poor Emille struggling to survive up on the cliffs. Did anyone even notice her going there? Does anyone but Marius care?
One thing is for certain, the MagiTek mast is visible to all, the tallest point besides the far away mountain and the only real point of interest besides the trap-and-crater filled shore. For the entitites on the shore, this means a moment of respite.
A chance to look over your wounds, loot what is still in one piece (nearly nothing, as it turns out!) or perhaps an oppourtunity to get to know one another, if only to later steal the other deepdelvers stuff.

Speaking of stuff to steal, for now, Cue is the proud owner of both EGG and CROWN, though the Psychic Presence continues to contest his claim. - Will this battle of goods see a bloody conclusion, or can there be peace in our time?

The only remaining query then, is what this whole Trial thing is all about? What does the Lady actually want you to do? How is murdering Kobolds by the hundreds in any way shape or form Proving yourselves?
Find out next time, dear scryers, on Lady of the Dungeon!

Pippin breathed heavily, snot and tears leaving his irritated mucosal membranes by the spoonful. Conjuring a frying pan to sear a steak required but a trivial amount of his willpower. Calling forth a ridiculous oversized rolling pin certainly took a whole lot more, and flattening a large number of foes also put a strain on his body in addition to his mind. He was about to sit down on the beach to catch his breath, when he noticed there was still a battle going on in the distance over at the tower. How many people entered the dungeon with him, again? He looked around him, and noticed the swordswoman was missing.

Hm... Pippin was resolute in his desire to speak with the upper management of his dungeon. And if 'Magnanimous' was going to make him face more of these 'trials' on his quest to do so, it would certainly help to have allies. It was prudent to help the swordswoman out, so he made his way to the tower.

"Oi, ya mechanical gits!" he bellowed at the creatures as he raised his right hand at them. Strange spectral energies seemed to coalesce around it. "Did your mum never teach to CUT in line?" As soon as he finished his line, the energies folded into themselves and a portal several feet in diameter opened up in front of Pippin. Thousands of spectral knives sprung forth from it, flowing freely like water from a burst dam, digging themselves into his opponents.

--- Some time in the near future at the beach ---

"You lot look worse for wear", he said as he looked at his potential allies. "Might be a good idea to freshen up before we move on".

Pippin procured a number of plates and cutlery from his backpack, and handed them out. Then he took his goblin liver, some salt crystals he found on the beach, a handful of sand, and threw it all into a cooking pot. "I's cook us something good and filling in a jiffy", he loudly proclaimed. There were a few questioning looks when he added a handful of sand to the pot, a look Pippin was used to by now. "Don't worry. A good chef can make anything edible!" With a flick of his wrist he conjured a stream of flame and hit the pot with it. Immediately, a large plume of smoke escaped from it.

A reddish glow of embarrassment briefly appeared on his cheeks. "This doesn't really happen all that often, me swears. Uh, if ya do find me any good ingredients, please gimme a call".

As the NORSE blood of the ancestor settled down from its boiling point, King Normal picks back up his dropped crown, which restores his Kingly Presences. At the moment the crown was restored into its rightful position, King Norman's King Senses tickle like an alarm clock. Another king is here. His eyes scout widely at the battlefield to look for perhaps an enemy king has appeared to invade his land.

Then his eyes lays upon Cue who holds the egg and the crown in its... Ball head? Ah, he was your Knight and Court Jester! Haha! What a funny fella! Jester are the only people beside king who can wear another crown for the sake of comedy! Hahaha, that ball head with that crown, wonderful!

"Wonderful, my Knight! Wonderful works!" King Norman praise his loyal knights, but mostly at Cue's direction. "Especially, you, Knight Cue! You have secured what might be an important artifact of this floor!"

In the meantime, Scepter the Knight Specter is busily carving up a perfect rock throne from a large boulder.

Scepter simply getting better and better after all these workout from his long servitude to the kingdom! The stone throne not only beautiful with etched carvings, but you can feel the sense of dominion over this land with its presence.

King Norman sits his well deserved rear end on the stone throne. Ohhh, Scepter even hollowed down the seat to fit my butt perfectly! This is a good day. Yes, a cerebration is needed, so he says to everyone:

"Hear all, today we battled many, and emerges victorious! This mighty deed shall be recognized! This shall be cerebrated! And in my royal name, King Norman, I claim this land to befitting as a holiday resort (after a lot of clean up) that shall host many wonderful parties! And all of you are granted free lifetime entry as the brave warriors who secure this wonderful land that needs a lots of development."

Edit:

King Norman notices Pippin have cooking utensil! Excellence! He points his finger at Pippin, "You! You shall in charge of cooking for us, and you too shall earn the rights to be the chef of this holiday resort if you wishes! Many nobles and great connoisseur will get to indulge in your cooking and your fame shall spread!" He paused a moment. "However, that's only if you can make a satisfactory meal today!"

...they shall march out of my laboratory and sweep away every adversary, every creed, every nation, until the very planet is in the loving grip of the Pax Bisonica. And then peace will reign, and the world, and all humanity, shall bow to me in humble gratitude...

Worthless! Worthless! Worthless and useless, these kobolds were! Cue's mind giggled in glee as it bounced backwards, watching the base creatures stumble upon themselves in a pathetic attempt to get themselves to EGG, and to CROWN! Haha! It would not help them, it would not, it would not! Cue was always out of grasp, impossible to lay a hand on, yes, yes indeed!

But that still left somebody who had not yet been punked. The presence. Yes, it used mind tricks, it was not really there. You coud not put tacks on the chair of psychic presence, you could not tie together their shoelaces. You could not even put a stick of dynamite in their pocket and watch them explode! How would you deal with such a thing hmmm.

Ah yes, Cue had a clue! Perhaps the presence came from EGG? That felt right. Anything in EGG was still young, a little baby. Yes, Cue would prank the EGG-baby presence by rearranging its own thoughts. It would make a mind-mansion to lead the thing on, bait and tempt it. But then, when it opened the door presented, BOOM: A deluge of thoughts too... spicy for them to handle! Haha, their own power would be their undoing!

Cue danced a little jester jig (as well as a ball can, anyway) in front of the King in celebration of this grand new idea!

Accursed kobolds! What idiot decided to give the little bastards armor? Emille ducked behind a rock as another wave of crude arrows sailed past. There were too many to dodge, so it was time to take a different approach. She poked her head out and began to focus on the kobold's wooden bows. Small tendrils of smoke began to rise from them.

Aaaaand nothing. Were their bows wet or something? She ducked her head back down, narrowly avoiding a slightly-above-room-temperature arrow. Marius piped up, "You seem to be having an unusual amount of trouble with your magic. Keep at it, I...need to consult my notes. I swear to the gods if there's some sort of fortune transference happening..." Not terribly helpful, but at least he seemed to be looking into it. Emille revealed herself and tried again, this time heating up the air around the rock until it rippled and distorted. Hopefully the others at the bottom were on their way, she didn't hear any more sounds of fighting at the bottom.

Still not entirely back to its chipper self, the gestalt had its component motes stay on the move in case of any bolts from the blue, even as it meandered towards the king and the majority of the other sophonts. The one that had manifested the huge physical object seemed to be preparing something, but if the way it was vibrating the medium was right, it seemed to want better ingredients. Oh, these bipeds and their cute need to consume things. Still, it was happy and willing to help, and dispersed still further to seek out things that might serve to feed the bipeds.

Setting 3d6 Incorporeality to defend itself again.8Using Incorporeality to search a wide area to find ingredients to help Pippin Bogleech.9

Catching their collective breath after such a rousing bout of berserking, the goblins took a closer look at their surroundings. A number of them were dead from some sort of magic explosion, but more importantly, nearly all the shiny armor had been blown to bits! How terrible. At least most of the kobolds in the general vicinity were dead, but a couple of the scouts could see some over in that weird spiky tower in the distance. As the group were about to head over there, they noticed three other things.

One: There was some sort of black ball holding EGG and wearing CROWN. They didn't care much for CROWN, but EGG looked really tasty.
Two: The King clearly seemed to favor the black ball! The goblins that had been knighted were crestfallen and wanted to get back into the King's good graces.
Three: The Orc Foodmans had tried to make some Foods with one of their livers. It was pretty obvious to the goblins why he'd failed, he'd used a perfectly healthy goblin liver, from a weirdo teetotaler goblin. Everyone knows its the horrible liver diseases that give goblin liver the right taste! Silly Orc.

There was an entirely obvious solution to this issue, but they'd have to decide between taking it or going to kill more of those damned kobolds. But also they didn't want to go against KING. And they were also pretty hungry, even if not for EGG, maybe they should held the Foodmans? The collective spent a short time arguing with itself, before finally deciding that killing kobolds was most important. Pesky kobolds, always trying to take the goblins rightful spot. In a single voice, the goblins charged at the tower, using a previously decided Goblin Formation for effect 10. Thus the first Goblin Formation is revealed: Goblin Attack Pyramid! Standing on each others shoulders, they didn't NEED to climb the tower, they could fight from this highly advantageous position of being stacked up high. At least, the goblins think this is advantageous. Whether it is or isn't really depends on what you think is the acceptable number of casualties when fighting.

Their Formation in place, the Goblins proceeded to do what Goblins do best: Charge without any other real planning to it: 9

Ha HA! They had the creatures on the run! And such fascinating creatures they were; had Span a mouth, it would be watering at the bounty of strange and exotic materials littering the beach. But no, not time for that yet - there were yet enemies left to slay! Slapping at his hips, Span summoned his extended selves to him; they slipped out of the discarded swords like snails from their shells, leaving the dead husk behind. He strode down the beach to those who remained, offering up his mighty flanks to those who would dare him.Defend - Soft Body [2d6] = 6
As he walked, he swung his clay body in hammers and spears of earthen mass, crushing those who couldn't flee in time.

[Goblin One Battalion]
The goblin horde craved one thing and one thing only; The blood of Kobolds, gained through amusing antics. These antics typically consisting of some combination of the words 'lethal' and 'slapstick' with a few 'explosion' and 'world class cheerleading gymnastics' thrown in for sport. Thus there was little surprise to anyone watching when the Goblins, instead of simply climbing up the cliff, instead decided to delicately fall upwards in a triangular pattern, hoping enough of them landed on each others backs that they could make a stairway for the goblin least inclined to pyramidize and most inclined to commit atrocious violence upon their hated foe.

The poor things do their best, but when all is said and done it turns out the stairway has to actually face the direction you want to go in for it to be any use.
Dismayed but no less bloodlusty, the goblins decide to scale the cliffs the old fashioned way, with hours of arduous goblin laddering. If they are in luck, they will get up there before everyone else leaves or dies of boredom!

[Sorry! No dice, you are stuck on the shore for this round. You'll get up there next turn, however. But by then it might be too late!]

--

[Pippin Bogleech]
The Ork Chef had simply had enough. With a wave of Wanda, his magical spatula, he summoned a storm of Knives to carve the fleeing Kobolds into so much filet minion.

The cloudless sky above grew cloud-full and ominous. Soon cleavers were falling by the handful, followed by steak-knives, slicers, carvers, scalpels, and knives for deboning.
Every sort of knife you could imagine, all made from the hiqest quality Cold Steel available at your local store today for competitive prices.
They sliced through the few remaining beachbound Kobolds like a claymore through a rubber boot full of ham, pleasing dads and spiritdads all over the multiverse with the violent metaphors, whilst still falling harmlessly right besides the other deepdelvers.
Luckily for them, Pippin had made sure to turn friendly cooking fire off in his meatamagic selection menu.

Of course, the sudden storm put something of a dampener on his planned feast, and all he had to show for his spectacular effort was a singled ++singed, rusty knife-laden sandy Goblin liver++. He wasn't quiet sure what to do with it, so he put it in his inventory for later.

Alas, the knives were conjured items, so they have already dissipated back into the aether.]

--

[Emille]
Staggered from the constant blows, Emille put herself to the task of daring Pyromancy. With both hands occupied with climbing however, there was little room for fancy somatic components to her spell, leaving it a weak and feeble thing.

Not that the Kobolds bows wern't the worst quality imaginable, mind you. But even kobold-hands could withstand the one degree celcius differential that Emille had inflicted.
They grinned, and prepared a counter-attack. Emille grinned in turn, for the Kobolds had fallen for her clever ruse!

--

[King Norman]
With no enemies left to rout, the King instead ordered his ghostly servant to carve him a throne out of the nearest rock.

It was, in a word, Magnificent. Though Sceptre only had his sword to work with, he wielded it with such skill and grace that the stones of the beach could do naught but obey his every wish and command.
When King Norman sat his Royalty upon it, he could feel the very land itself offering its bounty to him, as well as whispering to him of the most prominent threat to his Dominion.

[Item Get! The Royal Throne grants you a chance to claim Dominion over an area, such as a dungeon floor, by sitting in it and thus figuring out what pretenders might seek to usurp you or halt the spread of your Kingdoms Lands.
Should you slay or otherwise defeat these pretenders, you will gain a permanent, versatile +1d6 to all of your rolls in that area for as long as you stay on the throne, though they will not add to your Dice-pool total for the purposes of health.
The throne is a Static Item, and can thus be stolen.]

quote:

Bounty of the ThroneYour Royal Majesty! Two Pretenders stalk these lands! A Vile, Psychic Presence and a foul, magic eight ball! The Nation clamors for your just rule! Slay them, and all of the Beach Beyond Darkness shall be yours to command!

--

[Cue]
Cue felt devious. Utterly, maddeningly devious. So devious that he intentionally failed to keep Egg away from the psychic push he knew was coming, only so that the Psychic presence would put its guard down in carelessness!

Steam poured out of a newly formed crack in EGG, the psychic presence overwhelmed by the onslaught of substance abuse! The crown upon Cues head vibrated in satisfaction and he knew at once what he must do.

Kobold Crown posted:

The King is Dead, Long Live the King!
If you wish to move forward, you need do but one thing!
Take us to the place where sky meets a tower,
Placing us there within half an hour,
from when you came here, all fresh and afraid
From the pace of our counting this means you cannot delay
scant three minutes more until the world goes Kablooey
whence you will lose all chance at glory.

--

Emille
Emille knew full well what was coming, but this time she had a trick up her sleeve.

Hundreds of arrows pierced her flesh, tearing into it like it was naught but smoke. Confounded by their superiority, she exploded into a fireball that sent shockwaves throughout the Magi-Tek tower, causing yet more sparks to erupt from ancient Kobold armour.
They celebrated, for they had Won their first battle, and now surely promotion was within their reach.

'Two thousand years...' Emille thought to herself. That was how long ago Marius had claimed to have mastered that trick of hers.
It seemed so simple on the face of it, a chemical reaction quenched in time and then unquenced at the opportune moment, wherever the Pyromancer wished.
It had no real offensive capability as the thaumo-exothermic-radiation has long since disapated through [words Emille did not yet understand nor did she care about], but the giant cloud of smoke certainly proved useful whenever she needed to make a quick get away.
As Marius told it, he had traded a small fortune to a Duckling Hexer for the original spell, but Emille could never tell if he was joking.

A glint of metal caught her eye, even as the Kobolds feasted on ready made meal units below her. A crown-shaped hollow, set into the very top of the mast. A keyhole? Ah, but then all she needed was to find the key, and this part of the Trial could at last be settled.
Unless, of course, she fancied the cold side-dish of Revenge.

[You successfully evaded the Kobolds and reached the top of the mast! They think you defeated and thus will not attack you again unless you show yourself.]

--

[The Enkoridii]
With nothing left to fight, the Enkoridii dispersed throughout the area, looking for ingredients to supply Pippin with.

With the thaumotheric interference gone, the motes could easily slip through cracks in the sand follow the knifeful winds whichever way they pleased. They found a veritable cornucopia of things that might be edible; though admittedly mostly sharp metal things.
Bipeds needed iron, right? The Enkoridii were sure they did. Iron, ceramics, salt, water and mindbogglingly huge deposits of Francium. Normal elements that normal entities might consume in one manner or another.

The Enkoridii were pleased with themselves, for such a find! Though they left the Francium where it was (just beneath the sand, covering the lands for as far as they could perceive) until they could find a better way to transport it.

[Consumables found! You gain five units of [Iron, salt, ceramic and water] spices! Don't ask me how that works! Do ask me what you can do with it! Whatever your heart desires, is my answer, though they will be mostly useful for cooking!
Additionally, you notice the missing ingredient in the makeup of this floor that you had missed earlier. It is made almost entierly out of francium. Whoever designed this place must not have heard of basic chemical reactions, how droll!]

--

[Spandreloctalos]
Spandreloctalos had engaged his combat protocols, but there was no combat to engage in and thus sat still on the beach computing combat scenarioes whilst the others frolicked around him. As he sat there, he noticed the surf receding, as if it was time for tide.
Yet his somatosensoric sensors told him no Spheres lay in orbit, and the graviometric input was likewise Void except for where they became a scrambled mess of broken algorithms around the general whereabouts of goblins or the sudden spikes wherever the Enkoridii fought and dwelled.

That left only one plausible option; Impending Tsunami. Oh well, it was not as if he needed to worry about such a little thing as coupious amounts of water. Even should all the beach be washed away entierly, his mouldable clay would simply adapt to the currents of his new home at sea, granting him a clear advantage over all others.

--

[Everyone]
With no Kobolds remaining on the beach, only the cliffs have anything of real interest to hold your attention. Unless the feast of burnt goblin liver sounds more appealing, or perhaps dancing under a shower of cutlery?
As a whole, you cannot shake the feeling that something is amiss. As if together you hold all the keys, but that your time might be running out all the same. This whole Trial business was awful confusing at times, but still the thought of your hearts desire was too tantalizing to give up on so easily.

Ah, Francium. Such a fascinating substance, very rarely was it found in such vast quantities. A strange thing to make things from, given how incredibly... reactive... it... was.

Hmm.

Wasn't there a large amount of dihydrogen monoxide nearby? Surely, it had harvested some. That could be very problematic, these bipeds were fragile. Time to vibrate the air with a degree of urgency.

"Excuse me, bipeds? You should probably know this entire area is made of what will soon be a lot of very large explosions. It is also probably rendering you into an inert but glowing form."

There was no guaranteeing it could be understood, so it tried to make contact with the one being it truly knew to be sentient: Itself, or at least the nearest gas giant where enough of itself resided to give here-itself a boost.

Invoking Chocolate talent "Call the Rest of Me" to get a one-off massive boost in power:2 4

Fortunately, it was sympathetic to its problem, and channelled a moment of effort from the untold quadrillions of motes to assist the local endeavour.

Using 2D6 Manipulate energy (Plus the bonus from the talent) to levitate the rest of the group up away from the ground, probably towards the tower.5

Span debated whether or not to share his findings with the others. After all, they were in competition, somewhat. But when those delectable motes of light offered to benefit the group with its power, that pushed him to action. "Hello fellow bipeds and assorted ephemera! I am Spandreloctalos. Also, an enormous wave is about to hit us. Fear not - I will attempt to decipher its trajectory and timing and find way to keep us all relatively intact."

Perhaps it was easier said than done, but Span felt it his duty to try! He gazed out towards the water with eyes both visible and intangible and attempted to glean its secrets.Skill - Somatosensory Core Unit [2d6] = 5
The land, too, bore knowledge. He cast his awareness into the soil to assemble whatever minute clues he could to help them all.

Pippin was a tad surprised when he heard a voice coming from the strange twinkly lights. Apparently, that was a life form -- life forms? "Uh, excuse me, but... Did you say this place is going kerboom? How do you reckon? All me peepers see is sand and water". Then the soft-bodied, but no less stranger creature spoke out. It warned of an oncoming tsunami. Why, these otherwordly creatures sure weren't shy about making gloomy predictions.

Not versed in the art of swiming, Pippin very much intended to keep himself dry. How much of the beach would be flooded if a tsunami were to hit? Not wanting to find out, he quickly set foot for the highest point he could reach in the shortest possible time -- the top of the tower. But not without making some preparations. After all, he did not want to slip while climbing the structure. From the spicerack on his back he procured a jar of molasses, and spread some over the soles of his boots. Then he jumped up and down in the sand a few times. Grains of sand stuck to them. Hopefully the increased friction would keep him from slipping.

"Scepter the Scapter!" King Norman gave his mighty command as he being to float out of the throne, but he hold on to it because it's his throne. It's very comfortable and nice. "Unroot this chair! And send me and it up there toward where everyone is going!"

Easily lifting the throne up, Scepter the Specter toss up the throne with one hand while the king is still sitting on it, and baseball bat the throne using the greatsword to homerun the king and his throne to the destination with great speed.

...they shall march out of my laboratory and sweep away every adversary, every creed, every nation, until the very planet is in the loving grip of the Pax Bisonica. And then peace will reign, and the world, and all humanity, shall bow to me in humble gratitude...

Explosions were hilarious after all, and Cue was all about that hilarity. He was all about that glory too, so doing the whole thing with CROWN, why not? Cue shot to the top, using telekinetic force to shift through the piles of bodies for goods to be used on future... pranks as well.

Fly on top of the Tower with Telekinesis: 3d6= 11 Use Telekinesis to shift through goblin bodies for HILARIOUS goods for various pranks: 4d6= 10

"Excellent escape, Em!", Marius exclaimed, "I must say, teaching pyromancy to one of your aptitude was a joy." Emille smirked at the compliment and decided to take a breather. She removed a cigarillo she had hidden in her hat, ignited it with a hard stare, and took a drag. A terrible habit she picked up from Marius. The old man liked to smoke, even though he wheezed and coughed every time. Down below, it looked like the others were on their way, and in a hurry. About drat time. Emille decided to cover their advance.

She picked large clusters of the kobolds, and glared at the ground underneath them. She felt the earth itself and and everything above it began to heat up. She raised her arms upwards, motioning it all to burst forth.

Hopefully it was convincing enough for kobolds. "Unfortunately I cannot find too much precedent for what we're doing right now, at least with regards to luck. Assume you have mine unless we find evidence to the contrary.." The swashbuckler frowned, that was no good. Marius had notoriously poor luck, which he chalked up to karma. During her training, Emille was woken up more than once to clattering caused by all of Marius's furniture/decorations/assorted magical implements deciding to fall over in a massive chain reaction.

[Everyone]
Night falls upon the Deepdelvers without sign of warning when all the lights across the Beach go out at once. The sky is your obsidian tomb shroud, through which not even the stars are visible.
Suddenly a pinpoint of illumination appears, a veritable hole in the sky. It frays at the edges of the oppressive darkness, growing ever larger, until a new and deeper darkness appears inside.
This dark-within-dark is a Sphere of truly massive proportions – a world so unlike your own as to be unfathomable. It is home to endless storms and elemental purity, where naught may keep a form solidified.
It dominates the heavens. You have the feeling it is watching you.

--

[The Enkoridii]
The motes swirl in five-ten dimensions as The Collective bends the very Structure of the planes to their whims, making the intimate connection across eldritch barriers and conventional physics both.
To be at once home and not-home is not an unfamiliar feeling to the scout Enkoridii, yet it is made aware, by the Collective or its own intuition, that this new connection cannot last long without danger, and so that the part that is You must act. Act, and then sever.
Lest the Dungeon swallow the Whole.

[Talent Success! The Whole will act to aid all attempts to climb the cliffs and tower this turn! For now, I interpret this as 2d6 Energy manipulation bonus to any roll to climb the cliffs or the tower! Further details can be sorted out later.]

--

[Goblin One Battalion]

A bold new leader emerged from the Pyramid debacle, taking on the roll of Face. Her first and last action was to run straight into one of the many, many terrible and obvious traps littering the shore, dying nearly instantly.
Leaderless, the goblins milled about confused until the giant sky orb flung them bodily onto the cliffs. They took to this new development with wild abandon, practicing dive-bombing techniques on the myriad of Kobolds climbing the tower.

Smearing his boots with molasses, Pippin began the rough climb skywards to avoid the terrible omens foretold by his fellow Deepdelvers. He was aided in his efforts by the Enkoridii, finding his boots much heavier than normal, no matter what direction he pointed them in.
As long as he didn't try to do a hand-stand, that should make the rest of his trip easy as goblin liver pie! The one that he just burnt. But, never you mind that! It was an accident. It had never happened to him before.

Reaching the top in a fraction of the time it would take to climb it, Pippin tasked his brain to come up with the best route to scale a tower full of Kobolds, in order to avoid most of them whilst also not being set on fire by the inefficient Pyromancer or catching a stray Goblin or Dagger raining from the darkened skies above.

Rough course plotted, he took to scrambling up the back of the tower, hoisted in part by the strange energies that had surrounded him since the beach.
Pippin was the second Deepdelver to reach the top and thus he positioned himself as closely to the strange box at the towers tip as he was able. Whatever this floor was about, it was clear the Apex was somehow important to its conclusion and the fulfillment of the trial.

[Congratulations, you arrive at the top!]

--

[Emille]
With only three dozen ranged kobolds remaining, and all of them unawares of her presence, Emille had all the time in the world to plan her revenge.
She took a deep sip of her cigarillo, lungs filling with poison even as her brain reacted with a high dampened by years of chemical abuse and coughed out a blurt of fire that any dragons worth their scales would be ashamed of.

The bolt failed to singe even a single eyebrow, clad as they were in high quality ceramics.
Muttering to herself, she instead wove some of the darkness above into a cloak in which to linger, should the Kobolds find the courage to retaliate.

--

[Cue]
Cue took to the new gravitic anomalies like a fish to water, zooming about all over the place like an irate ping-pong in a pinball factory during an earthquake. His preffered method of travel had always been bouncing of off peoples heads, especially if they wore an amusingly clanging helmet on which to collide with bodily. Oh, to cause both music and harm, was there ever a higher delight?

[Cue overskills the Rough Terrain and introduced a Shame! [Rock-Slide] causes the difficulty of the Rough Terrain to increase by 1d6, dealing 1d6 Falling Rocks damage to any who fail the accent! Rude!]

Riding the explosions around him, Cue took the time to pickpocket goblin dive bombers and falling ambush kobolds at his leisure with some skillful telekinetic displays.

Unfortunately, what the Kobolds held was safe inside mag-locked pouches, and the Goblins really only had a handful of snails to their name.

At the end of his journey, Cue slam-dunks CROWN right into the crownhole, causing the entire tower to light up and broadcast a field of Quenching so strong that even Marius has trouble penetrating it, even when he is technically there in the middle of it, hitchhiking in Emille shadow.

[CROWN is lost to the Crownhole, opening a portal to the next floor!]

--

[Cue, Pippin, Emille]
In the eye of the invisibility storm a vortex opens, pullin you in. You cannot escape it, but then again why would you want to? On the other side you see the familiar stone of the dungeon stairwell, whereas all the beach has to offer you at this point is certain death. You jump through, and vanish!

Congratulations on making it through the first trial! Now back to the other deepdelvers!]

--

[King Norman]
The King was nothing if not lazyefficient, so he ordered his Knight to uproot his throne that he may relocate it properly.

Spectre took to the task with gusto (perhaps a little too much gusto) and wrought a large section of the beach apart in his quest to unseal the throne from the soil without so much as a scratch.
Utterly successful in his endeavor like always, the King now sat surrounded by a nano-meter thin layer of sand, an incoming tidal wave and a mountains worth of francium.

[Success! You uproot the throne, making it mobile! It can now be moved about as a free action over normal terrain, though rough terrain still requires an action to cross.
Additionaly, you deal a Wound to the beach, giving it a -1d6 Thin Layer when it comes to defending the Francium from incoming water-based attacks.]

The King, somewhat aghast at the prospect of meeting an untimely end due to the inhospitably of basic chemistry, orders his Knight to 'do whatever it takes' to get him to the tower in time.
Spectre lifts the Throne over one shoulder, juggling it into the air with his immense strength before swatting it into the sky with the power of his ghostly sword.

The throne shatters utterly under the forces involved, the strange energies pouring from the Orb above scattering the remains with the wind. The King himself survives somehow, having been shielded from the worst of the blow by his throne.
At once, the voices and promises of dominion fade and soon he is caught up in the vortex at the towers tip, which readily and greedily pulls its victim in.

[Don't use powers as skills! Your throne is destroyed as you deliberately attacked it for crazy high amounts of damage! Congratulations, you have completed the trial and are through to the next floor!]

--

[Kobolds]

With the quenching field once more re-activated, the remaining Kobolds vanish from view.

--

[The Enkoridii]

The Motes 'dance' in the Whole, riding aetheric winds and slinging themselves in improbable orbits via careful manipulation of microgravity, applied with arithmetical precision and spontaneous annihilation.
Really, what a biped called dance was less than a toddlers attempt at a crawl, compared to the refined and marvelous technique of the Collective.

Beautiful to behold, but inefficient when tasked to navigate a bunch of falling rocks.
Though the beings made out of pure energy cannot actually be harmed by such crude kinetic projectiles, it is enough to slow them down such as they do not reach the top. Instead, they find themselves the target of the Kobolds final volley of arrows.

Ah yes, there it was right now. ETA one second. But sometimes, one second is all it takes.

[Oh no! The tidal wave is about to hit! You have ONE action and one action only to survive, somehow. Good luck! Make it count.]

--

[Goblin-One-Battalion]

From the horizon comes a wave of water that nearly touches the darkened sky, it will reach your position within seconds and doubtlessly drown you or wash you away.
And even if you somehow survive the impact, the water will eventually reach the Francium and then who knows what will happen. You do, it will explode, killing you all.
You don't have much time to act, but unlike poor Spandreloctalos you at least aren't stuck at the bottom of the cliffs. Indeed, the tower and its invisible Kobolds is your only obstacle.
You can freely attempt the escape, but if you want to risk it you could stay a moment longer and snatch something the others missed in their eagerness to escape. It is up to you!

[Certain Escape, or Uncertain Escape and a chance to use a skill to get some loot before you go! Time is ticking, make your choice!]

--

[The Enkoridii]
Well, that was unfortunate. In directing your energies to help the others escape, it seems you have found yourself in a bit of a pickle. You struggle to get yourself to the clifftop, only to see the impending tidal wave approach the shore far faster than it has any right to do.
The Whole bids you farewell as it retreats from whence it came, not whising to risk it all for comparatively little gain, stranding you with yourself at the base of the tower.

An instinct you have never really had to listen to flares up in a wide-band spectrum all stations alert. Survival.

You saw the other Deepdelvers vanish at the top of the tower, so you can naturally assume that it represents the way out of here. All you need to do is to reach it in time.
A stray mote, one of the 'black sheep' as the bipeds put it, of your collective family, the one that never gave in to an ounce of fear reports a large collection of sensetive electromagics nearby. A collection that you could salvage, had you the time.

[Enkoridii, to escape you must defeat a Rough Terrain check of 2d6 difficulty! You have both your actions to do this. If you wish to use one of them for looting instead of climbing, you are free to do so, but do so with your first roll! The timing is important. Feel free to roll the Rough Terrain roll yourself to speed things along!]

--

[Everyone]
With the Psychic Presence defeated, the Kobolds dead, fleeing or Invisible and the Crown lost to wyrd magiteknology, there is little left for the Deepdelvers at the Beach Beyond Darkness to do but flee, or die trying.
Who will make it, who will not? Find out next time on Lady of the Dungeon!

It had helped save a significant number of sentients, and it had no real desire to experience an Fr plus H2O explosion in relative proximity. Fortunately, 'terrain' was at best a convention for it: It didn't necessarily have a solid physical form.

Hmm. Interesting, interesting. That was a lot of water. Rather too much in his estimation. But then, estimations weren't always correct by their very nature. Even in the face of certain death, Span had to admit it had seen quite a variety of strange things in its short time here. Whatever remained of him after this impact would relay such to his home plane, he supposed.

Much fun! Attacking hated Kobolds with their own bodies as projectiles, the goblins were greatly enjoying themselves. But goblins have a survival instinct too and realize that sitting there would just end with all of them dying, so they start considering getting up to that weird door thingy in the sky. But as they're about to begin their safe climb, one of the tertiary scouts reports in: "Oy, those floaty shinies that help us do divebombings are stuck!"

Much abuzz within the collective. Much discussion. Eventually it is decided: Helping shinies is almost as good as getting shinies, also a lot of the goblins really enjoyed flying. The ones that survived anyways. But gobbies also need to save themselves, so they come up with the PERFECT GOBLIN PLAN. Plan GOBBIE CHAIN TO SKY TO HELP SHINIES THAT DO FLYING THINGS. To start with, half of the goblins form a long chain up the tower, trying to reach the door up top. The plan is for them to hold out as long as they can before touching it, in hopes that the other half of the goblins, which is forming a chain down the cliff, can grab the floaty shinies and hopefully drag them all together when the goblins snap back into one. There might not be enough time, but goblins love only one thing more that shinies, and that is recklessly stupid plans.

Roll 1 for goblins chaining up the tower: 9
Roll 2 for goblins chaining down the cliff:12

quote:

[Don't use powers as skills! Your throne is destroyed as you deliberately attacked it for crazy high amounts of damage! Congratulations, you have completed the trial and are through to the next floor!]

[Everyone]
Calamity approaches from above, below and to the side, even as the last of the Deepdelvers scramble up the tower to the safety of the invisible vortex.

[Goblin-One-Battalion]
Closest to the exit, the goblins find themselves in the luxurious position of choice, and elect to risk it all in an attempt to save those who are left. The Enkoridii [sparkle] incoherently at them, in what they think is jubilant praise!
Stretching down the tower, the goblin chain must deal with not only rough terrain, but flying daggers and invisible Kobolds as well. Not to mention the impending wave of death, should their luck or arm-strength falter.

Further down they go, the utmost Goblins reaching one frail arm towards the lead Enkoridii, whom clings to it fearfully!

--

[Enkoridii]
Just when you thought all was lost, the mass of the [nspatial singularity collapse bipeds] elongates it/themselves towards you in a friendly manner, bounding your deflated optimism! You reach out, that you might still be rescued.

--

[Spandreloctalos]
It is as if the sky itself came down to meet you, only it is solid and you are standing upright. You will yourself bouyoush, spherical and proud, molding your clay as to best survive your new environs.

The water collides with Spandreloctalos, his systems going into overdrive to repair the damage only to instead begin emulating it and the water surrounding him, infusing him and barraging him as more and more security measures shut down.
Clay turns to sand turns to dust turns to water, until every single particle of the machine is rendered inert and dead.

--

[Spandreloctalos]
You have died. Your Somatoseneric Core Unit drifts in alone an endless void, lit only by five golden sparks. You have no anger, no fear, but still a brief sense of loss washes over you until that too is gone.
All that remains is curiosity and the knowledge that here you remain, until the five golden sparks have found their purpose; as Haunts to wax and wane the fortune of those in the Dungeon.

[You gain five 1d6 haunts to spend as you please. Once they are gone, so are you.]

--

[Goblin-One-Battlion, Enkoridii]
Goblin and mote, together til the end. You watch as the wave reaches the shore, smashing into Spandreloctalos and destroying him utterly.
With but seconds to spare before the first drop of water hits the exposed layer of Francium, the Goblins engage the snapback process, hoping against hope that the motes can hold on.
The Enkoridii do likewise, but as they accelerate upwards notice something off with their extraordinary senses. Waves in the current, of the gravitic sense. Anomalies bent on interception.

The Goblins fly together, one by one folding in on themselves and thereby shortening the gap between that which is utmost and inner, Face and Core.
And then it hits them. The weight of three additional, invisible passengers. The Face goblin screams in pain as his arm is stretched to its limit, as does the rest of the goblins, all at once in unison. A terrible scream that does its best to overcome the roar of the ocean-come-to-meet you.

[Enkoridii, Kobolds]
The Face-Goblins arm breaks with a disgusting snap, loosening from the socket. The thaumaturgical feedback is too much and you lose your gravitic grip on them, falling into the abyss below.
Frantic, the Kobolds flail at you with claws and tools enhanced by magitek ceramics, but to no avail. They cannot harm you. You ar3 invincible! Y.o'u a`r#e an0th3 rstage of be...

--

[Enkoridii]
You have died. The motes twist and turn amongst themselves in an endless void. What was once Whole has now been broken, one part of it lost forever in the depths of The Dungeon. It scarcely matters, as long as The Whole is safe.
You drift for a while, until another [spirit?] comes into view. It is the biped known as [Spandreloctalos]. He is observing five golden sparks with a look of serenity upon his core unit.
You reflect on this for a while, until you note that you, too, have such sparks dancing amonst your motes. You have no anger, no fear, but still a brief sense of loss washes over you until that too is gone.
All that remains is curiosity and the knowledge that here you remain, until the five golden sparks have found their purpose; as Haunts to wax and wane the fortune of those in the Dungeon.

[You gain five 1d6 haunts to spend as you please. Once they are gone, so are you.]

--

[Goblin-One-Battalion]
Another face lost, not to mention your friends. It is hardly a comfort at all when the last stray goblin smacks into the first, becoming One once more, the vortex above pulling you in inexhaustibly. Soon you vanish, like the others.

--

[Everyone (still alive)]

You appear as if nothing had happened on the other side of the opaque door in the stairwell of the Dungeon. There is no sign of those who went before you and equally no sign of time having passed.
Some of you are clearly hurt, but here in this limbo of stairs it troubles you less than it did on the beach. The air is quiet and still and with nothing else to do you stumble forward, descending the steps at your own pace.

An hour passes by before you reach the next door, one floor down impossibly. You know the stairwell curves, you can see the bottom and the walls just fine.
If one of you were to lag behind, you soon see them from a window across the hall.
You thank your stars or maker, or sacred deities or whatever else you wish to lay your faith upon that you were not born a Geometre, for then even this humble stairwell would likely be your grave.

At last you reach the next door, and upon touching it find yourselves whisked away once more.

--

Second Floor – The War Room

You appear comfortably seated in a strange room before a table where markers and miniatures depict to you a landscape of sorts. Only, it seems far too alive to be naught but a toy.
The figures move about of the own accord, and even the tiniest blades of grass sway in a gentle wind. Each chair has a console before it bearing many strange runes.
Poking one marked with a cloud experimentally adds a cloud to the hex currently highlighted by a ball of light that lazily roams the table, hot to the touch.
Specialized sticks are available for moving it around, you realize, as your hand [or hand equivalent] grasps for your own without prompt.

There are six seats, but only five of you remaining. As you sit and reflect on your loss, a clarity occurs and where once there was nothing, there still isn't anything. But at the same time you know She has one again appeared.

Oh myself! What happened there am I right?? Wasn't that exciting and stuff? Combat, death, despair, surfing? Yeah that last bit is the best if you ask me. Anyway you totally went in there and like, solved the puzzle and beat the trial or whatever.
Woopdedoo aren't you lot proud of yourselves for working that one out. You should give yourselves A Pat On The Back or something, I don't know. Anyway, like, welcome to the second floor and junk. It's The War Room, if you couldn't tell.

Feel free to do whatever but you ain't getting out again until you like, give up or something. Or you know, you beat the trial. Yeah. As if you could pull that one off a second time.

...

Oh the rules? You can figure those out yourselves but, as I'm feeling particularly generous and all suffice it to say is you've got to beat the trial. Sounds simple right? Yeah well you have to do it from up here, unless you want things to get really dirty.
The consoles should handle like, your interactions? They attuned to your souls the moment you arrived, so working them out wont be like, a problem for you. Unless you are an idiot. And like, that's what the first two trials were for? So at least then you are a lucky idiot.
Anyway have fun or whatever. Ciao.

--

More confused then when you got here, you shrug your collective shoulders (some more than others) and gaze once more on the fields below you.

From but a glance, you can tell one side of the river is better off than the other. An idyllic farming village laps the morning sun amidst fields of well-growing grains, blessed thrice-fold by common rains.
Pristine forests mark its perimeter and apple trees grow throughout, promising a fruit filled future.

A bridge crosses the river, connecting this paradise to a harsh desert. A wasteland, dotted with cactai and ruins. A mountain has been dug out of the harsh soil, glimmers in the rough dirt hinting at the great wealth that can be found below.
In the southeastern corner, more ruins and a curious gate, leading into the depths of this oddly truncated world.

Pushing the orb around at random, one amongst you presses a rune marked with a magnifying glass. The view instantly zooms in on the highlighted hex, showing it in far more detail from an isometric view.

It is a world you could get lost in forever.

--

[Alright people! Pick a side and make it thrive, or do whatever else with the world that takes your fancy!
You can move about the room but there is nothing of interest besides your seats and their respective consoles.
You cannot enter another Deepdelvers seat nor can you interfere with each other directly. There are no exits.
The world is as you see before you, endless opportunity limited only by your imagination and the roll of the dice.
Speaking of dice, roll your initiative to represent your place on the table (highest first, lowest last, and then your actions as it pleases you.]

--

[Bonus Rule Change Extravaganza!]
After much rumination over the current state of affairs, I have, together with you the players active on the IRC channel (visit us at https://www.synirc.com #madgod) come up with the following rule changes, effective immediately.

code:

Damage
* If you beat the defensive roll, you deal 1 hp of damage.
* If you beat the defensive roll by one rank, you deal 2 damage.
* If you beat the defensive roll by two ranks, you deal 3 damage.
* -etc
Defense
* Instead of defending with your skills, you instead defend with a dedicated Defensive Ability, which you pay for using the normal system.
* You can still opt to use a Skill for defense, however such a use will cost an action whereas the defensive ability is passive.
* If you suffer a failure you do not take the hit to the skill as per the old system, rather you take damage to your new and shiny HP POOL.
* Equally, your defensive skill can not be destroyed though it can suffer deliberating wounds.
Health
* Everybody starts with 10 Hp.
* HP is capped.
* When you run out of HP you die.
* Ranks suffered as damage from the previous floor may be rebought for HP at a one:one value.
Stat Allocation
* You have 15 ranks with which to purchase your skills, defenses and powers.
* Every rank equals one 1d6 with which to roll
* There is no limit on the amount of skills, powers or defenses you may purchase, save that you cannot purchase more than 15 ranks worth at character (re)generation.
* Equally, no skill or power may grow beyond 5d6 at character (re)generation, aside from those that already where if you elect to keep it.
* Ranks suffered as damage on the previous floor may be rebought for HP at a one:one ratio.
* Ranks that are not rebought this way will still count for your 15 rank total, such that a deepdelver who wishes to remain unhurt even though they suffered damage, will have less total ranks to show for it.
Buffs
* In order to buff an attack power that you wish to attack with, select a skill and use one of your actions to try to beat the dicepool of the power you want to use to buff with.
* Aiding Another works the same way
* Example: Pippin uses Spicery to buff Conjured Cooking Utensils with Lose Me Patience, rolling 2d6 vs 1d6 and succeeding, adding Lose Me Patience 1d6 to his planned Conjured Cooking Utensils 4d6 attack
Skills
* When you encounter an active skill that you want to disable (say someone being invisible), you roll your skill against theirs as per usual. If you fail to beat the enemies roll, you do not accomplish anything.
* If you beat their roll with anything less than a full rank; you have only a partial success, gaining some information or minor benefit but little else. One rank of success means you disable the effect.
* However, if you manage to beat their entire Skill Dicepool in the targeted skill, you trigger an Overskill, which lets you do cool and or weird stuff, such as introducing a skill wound, a [Shame].
Respec
* At this point in time, because of the somewhat drastic rule changes, players are awarded a full respec. This will allow you to re-allocate points into a defense ability and to move your other points around as you desire.

--

[Emille] Marius: What just happened? Where have you been? I've been trying to reach you all week.

Such a shame. The goblins were really starting to like those floating shinies. A brief moment of sile-

Oh man, look at this cool board! Whoa! The goblins immediately forget why they were upset at all, and take to playing with the board. Unfortunately, despite being a collective, they only have one stick, so a large fight breaks out until it is decided to let one of the calmer minds within the Battalion take the lead, and the stick, at least at first. Enter Gobinacious Green Esq., or so he calls himself. After a bit of poking and prodding at various bits and pieces of terrain, the goblins agree that there is an obvious place to start, and begin to poke at the gate in the south part of the desert. It calls to their goblin-like sensibilities afterall. They find, to their delight, a button with a simple icon of a goblin on it. They mash the poo poo out of that button, and send the goblins down and around that gate to see what they can find 8 (Be Everywhere). A different set of goblins was more interested in that set of ruins nearby, and managed to get Gobinacious to send another set of button-spammed goblins to scout out the ruins hex closest to the road 13 (Be Everywhere, again.)

Infinity Gaia fucked around with this message at Jul 16, 2017 around 13:45

I guess this is two actions? One is to poke at a random hex of those 5 ruins to the south of the desert, and the other one is to poke at the weird gate thing.

Since there is some confusion about what to do, here is some further clarification.

Step one: Roll initiative to determine your place on the table (and thus who goes first etc).
Step two (optional): Point to a hex or general area with the Highlighting Orb and click the Zoom button to get some basic information about the area.
Step three: Use your powers, skills or talents to influence the world. Each use costs an action, as per usual. You have two actions per round, as per usual.
Step four: ???
Step five: Beat the Trial of the War Room.

[Talent redefinition: You are what you eat - Chocolate talent. Pippin magically cooks up a delicious meal in the span of a few seconds, using a nearby (in)edible material as an ingredient. The dish infuses the person with a characteristic of the used ingredient]

Pippin had made a mental note that he would have some harsh words with Magnanimous the moment he'd cross paths with her again. Yet there he sat in a room with her and a number of fellow Deepdelvers, not being able to utter a word about how upset he was about the state of his restaurant. Not for a lack of ability or opportunity to do so, but because of his transfixion on this infinitely zooming map.

He pushed a button here, pulled a lever there, and gazed in wonder as the map zoomed in an out on various features of the landscape. He was having a good time, looking at local flora, fauna, and even the odd villager going about his day oblivious to the green giant spying from above. This infinitely detailed portrait of flowing water, lush forests and happy villagers could hold his attention for days, if not forever.

Yet his expression soured when he focused deeper on the side of the map past the big bridge. There he found people living in the shadow of the mountain. Not in idyllic villages where worries did not seem to exist, but in a state of despair and filth. Emanciated figures draped in rags seemed to aimlessly wander the wasteland. This disparity did not sit well with Pippin, for he too was born in the mountains. Even now the few memories he had of his early childhood came flooding back to him ever so briefly. Those chillingly cold nights, not knowing when his next meal would be or if there ever would be a next meal, the loneliness of the cave during hunts when his paren--

Pippin quickly snapped out of the bad memory; threw up a mental barrier to repress it. He looked at the board again. What if-- what if the little people didn't need to be hungry? There was, after all, plenty of food on this map to go around. Maybe the mountain folks could convince the villagers to share? Yes, that could work. He mentally selected a number of mountain people and clicked a button labeled 'diplomacy'.

That would settle the mountain people's problems in the long run. But hunger was a nagging thing, one which could not be easily ignored. There would need to be a solution in the short term too. He selected a path of gems, and pressed the 'transform' button.

Etiquette - attempt diplomacy. 2d6=9
Talent - You are what you eat. 1d4=1

Powers: Ghost of the Greatest Royal Knight of the kingdom who graduated top squire in the school of knights and become a champion tournament then dragon slaying hero with 300 confirmed dragons kills- He who can wipe out anyone with precision the likes ones never seen in the world with a secret networks of spies across the land to tract down tax dodger - The ghost who can kill you in over seven hundred ways, and that is just bare hands - Not only is it verse in the way of unarmed combat, but it have access to the entire ghost realm where all kingdom's dead knights live - If only you could have known what unholy retribution your little "clever" scheme was about to bring down upon you! [7d6]

Defend action: Protect me! [5d6]

Talent: I AM THE LAW [Mint]
Creates new winning conditions of the floor for self and/or anyone/everyone.

-----------------------------

"WHAT! NEW LAND! DOMESTIC DEVELOPMENT!? I WILL WIN THIS GAME OR MY NAME IS NOT KING NORMAN!"

In the span of seconds, King Norman arrives at the village at the forest area with his gallant knight, he become their king and brought prosperity to all!

...they shall march out of my laboratory and sweep away every adversary, every creed, every nation, until the very planet is in the loving grip of the Pax Bisonica. And then peace will reign, and the world, and all humanity, shall bow to me in humble gratitude...

Cue bounced on its seat, smacking against armrests, backrests, magical and mundane constraints. Not in any attempt to escape, oh no, but just to make as infuriating a racket as it possibly could, as it pressed and spammed buttons with glee. It didn't even know what they did, at first, but it kept spamming them anyway.

Eventually though, it learned something AMAZING! It could affect the little simulation people's lives! And it had SO MUCH more power than in reality!

Ohh the pranks it could pull! Lightning from a clear sky, ahahah reverse-gravity wednesdays, yes, the potential was ENDLE-

Wait. Was that a mountain?????

In that moment, Cue recalled the dynamite-in-pocket trick that it so loved.

Could it make... a volcano-in-mountain trick too? Explode the mountain, yes! Watch the people happily dig for diamonds only to watch all their sparkling gems and hard work and lives explode to the sky in a cloud of ash ahahahaa! Sometimes Cue truly marveled at its comedic genius.

Disincorporation was such a bother: Death, although merely a transfer of energy states, was an irreversible one. Although observing at one remove, there were still tasks to be completed, jobs to be finished, debts to be repaid. The echo of the memory of incorporeal motes hovered over the green biped and tsked as once again it used inferior ingredients. Hadn't it gone to a lot of trouble to get him some others? It delivered them now, ghosts of water and salt, echoes of iron and ceramics. There! That should be worth cooking with!

Burning two Haunts to grant Pippin Bogleech a reroll on his talent, using the ghosts of the ingredients collected on his behalf. Haunts left: 3

quote:

12:45 <AJ_Impy> Morning, Thaumocrates. Can I burn a haunt on giving Pippin Bogleech a talent reroll by giving him the ghosts of the ingredients gathered?
12:46 <Thaumocrates> You know what, go ahead
12:46 <Thaumocrates> you did get a bunch of ingredients for him before
12:47 <Thaumocrates> preliminary ruling is one haunt per degree of talent
12:47 <Thaumocrates> so vanilla is 1 haunt, chocolate is 2, mint is 3 haunts

You had me worried, and I even lost contact with my shadow. That...doesn't happen. Emille replied outloud, feeling a bit foolish, "What are you talking about? I left the beach and ended up here, barely took a minute." She heard the sound of a groan echo through her mind, "Then Time Shenanigans are afoot, be on your guard. I'll try to keep you updated on how much time has passed, but I'm afraid there's little I can actually do about it.

Great. An entire week gone. Hopefully it wouldn't end up more than that. Emille pushed the implications of this out of her mind and looked around the room. She was in some sort of game room, not your usual dungeon fare! (At least at this scale; dungeon game rooms almost always had the pieces and whatnot adventurer sized.) She absentmindedly ran her hands over the table; it kind of reminded her of some of the games she used to play with Marius.

At some point, the old man had gone through a board game making phase and had designed a non-trivial number of war games, card games, and everything in between. However, he grew sick of the clutter caused by this and the inconvenience caused whenever some piece or token went missing and created a special table capable of reconfiguring itself into whatever game board he desired. Emille fondly remembered afternoons spent playing Topple the Tyrant or Labyrinths and Leviathans on Marius's strange table. This particular game reminded her of the former. It even used hexagons!

"Hey, Marius.", she said, "This looks right up your alley, want to try it out? There's a free seat."

"Sorry, Em. I'm occupied at the moment. You know those items I had to get? It turns out I hid them far too well. I'm currently negotiating with a lich lord for one of them back. It decided to become incredibly greedy over the last few millennia."

Well, that was a shame. Emille poked at the spot on the map where a strange stone arch was standing. What was that all about?

[Everyone]
As you take your seats and get comfortable with the new controls, you don't feel any change wash over you at all. No new memories insert themselves over old ones and the world as you know it stays the same.
Wholly un-noteworthy is this development, so you pay it no mind, excited to get on with the world before you.

[Marius]
Something has happened. Emille feels fundamentally different than she did before. But without her at your side and only shadows to work with, how exactly she is different is very hard to say.

[Cue]
First to act, the dreadful eight-ball goes totally bananas all over his console, immediately destroying one of the more important looking buttons. [Talent failure!]

After calming down somewhat (relatively), and not wanting to ruin his own chances at 'having a little fun', Cue diverts his random bouncing from the control panel to the chair, where his crazy antics serve to distract the other players into letting him take the first Official Go of the game.

Pushing the Highlighting Orb onto the quarry-site, Cue and the rest of the Deepdelvers are presented with a huge amount of mostly useless information, in the form of charts and graphs that float nonchalantly over the table.
With a sweep of telkinetic hand Cue pushes the infographics away and instead zooms in on the only activity on the area at the very bottom of the quarry where curiously indistinct Peoples slave away in the soil.
Clawing through rock and stone with their hands or crude stone instruments, mostly fruitlessly, in an attempt to get at the riches which surely lie beneath.

Cue watches them intently, the umbral, unicorn-ivory sphere a wrathful eclipse filling the sky should any peoples turn their head heavensward. Alas, they do not, instead wholly preoccupied with Life and its Harshness.
For the days are not kind to the people on the right side of the table. Indeed, there is little to eat and many that need too. The most powerful (well fed) of these Survivors task those less fortunate with The Dig,
in the hopes that any riches they find might be traded across the river for the scraps of feed the leftsiders deign throw expensively their way.

Thus it is with no small amount of excitement when, after days or weeks of hard labour, one of the pit-slaves makes an astonishing find.

With trembling hands, it polishes the dirt of the flawless ruby, incubated in the depths of the world for untold aeons, raising it high that all may see the Glimmer of Hope,
a find that may prove to be the one baraning chip that could actually make a difference, perhaps even securing a shipment of food for the rest of the season.

Cue laughs and laughs and laughs and laughs, the psychic guffaw echoing across the world as he expends his power into the console, burying the slaves and their dreams in rivers of magma.

[A dc14 Volcano has been Raised in the Quarry! Rightsiders take an incredible hit to morale, wealth and labour as their only real industry is completely annihilated!]

--

[Goblin-One-Battalion]
Gobinacious Green Esq, the current face of the mass of goblins sees nothing but opportunity. Opportunity, and a button clearly marked with Goblins, plural.
It spends its entire turn pushing the button over and over and over again, only realizing it has to actually select a hex with the Highlighting Orb after what feels like half a hour of absolutely nothing happening.

Reluctantly selecting the southeastern desert, Gobinacious Green Esq continues spamming the button, hoping that the newly spawned gobboes will spread out and explore the region.

They spread without much issue, despite the harsh and unforgiving terrain, Goblins being uniquely adapted to even the worst living conditions. As they spread, they also pray, though their 'prayers' are more like letters home addressed to the giant goblin in the sky.
The information contained within fills the air above the Wartable with new facts and figures that were missing from the general overlay, though some of these new factoids are obviously faulty or suspect.

One such 'prayer' is particularly interesting. It concerns the suspected dungeon set into the south-easternmost mountain and contains the preliminary reports of the goblins expeditions there.

"Is big gate, 's wot it is. Lotssa weird scratchy-writey-markies like them scholars or wiselards always goin' on 'bout. Reckon we could bust it down in a season or two with what we 'ave on hand, though some tools would see it done right quick.
More people would jus' make it 'arder though, not 'nuff space for it."

[You have found a dungeon! Small D, so as not to be confused with The Dungeon you are currently in! The (tiny d) dungeon is currently sealed, but the goblins you have placed there will get it open around turn four if nothing about the situation changes.
You have no idea what can be found inside, but then again isn't that sort of the point?]

Another goblin prayer streams from the isometric world onto the infographic overlay, regarding the ruins east of the dungeon.

"Ruins, is wot it is. Used to be a big city 'ere, though now its mostly gone. Got some prime stone i reckon, and other materials like wood and bits of metal. All salvage, mind. Rusted and ancient by the looks of it. Nothing else interesting about it.

[You have found a Ruined Rightsider City! The Ruined City counts as a Resource Site where industrious goblins or peoples can find all sorts of goodies they might need to, for instance, build a new not-ruined city.
Goblins set working here will generate 1 Salvage per Tech Level with a minimum of 1 gained per turn. Currently, the goblins Tech Level is zero.]

--

[Pippin Bogleech]

Taking pity on the plight of the mostly-burned-to-death mountain people, Pippin selected a few of them via the use of the Highlighting Orb, the specialized stick and some very careful pointing.
Pressing a button marked diplomacy, he bade them conduct such with the Leftsiders, in hope that the mountain peoples might soon stabilize.

Try as he might, the King could simply find nothing to improve. All the same, they appreciated the input and soon a small trickle of prayers started flowing in.

Dear Royal Mayesty! I am not one to complain, but as you can see we have want for nothing but gems and treasure. And oh, what a want it is! We are sure those filthy right-siders hoard them in their dirty ruins and desolate quarries, intent to greedily sit at them forevermore!
Oh, great majesty, lend us an army that we might conquer them and take their wealth with force, for we can not be bothered to do it ourselves.

Love,
Elder Petrovius

--

[Emille]
Emille pushed the Highlighting Orb back to the dungeon entrance and saw, much like could be expected, a hordelet of goblins hard at work trying to get it open.
They hadn't progressed very far in the time since Goblin-One-Battalion last checked in, and Emilles adventuring know-how could not provide any more intel than had already been recovered.

To make matters worse, Marius was too busy to lend a hand and so Emille spent the rest of her turn zoomed in on the goblins, watching them work and fret and be a nuisance to one another, as more and more infographics overlaid the table, responding to her every idle thought.

It really was amazing, how easy it was to lose track of time, or even lose track of yourselves, when presented with a worlds worth of information and life.

--

[Enkoridii]

Two golden sparks are spent, wasting away into the surrounding nothing, leaving you with but three left with wich to see and be. You don't really feel much of anything, any more.

--

[Goblin-One-Battalion]
As the final player ends their turn, the Highighting Orb dims, turning day into night for the people and goblins below. Soon, a fire breaks out in the ruined city of the rightsiders where those selfsame goblins have made their camp.

A fire that is quickly put out without any substantial losses. In prayer, the goblins stationed there report that unknown creatures attacked under the cover of night, but were chased away by the ill-equipped but rather substantial patrols.

[Everyone]
Thus ends Turn One of the Wartable.
If you desire to put a People to Work on a Resource Site, doing this is a free action, as long as you have a people nearby with which to work them.
A worked resource will be processed at the default tech-level of the people working them, lest they be of particularly high quality.
A worked resource's tech level can be improved with appropriate actions, with a threshold of one rank per level.
A Peopes tech level depends on their access to the [food] [wealth] and [salvage] resources, and [shelter] improvements.
Resources can be spent to add a bonus to an appropriate action, to ease the deployment of improvements unto the world. One resource equals 1d6 to an action.

Big door blocking dungeon. Normal enough. Probably a puzzle or secret key or magic word to open it. Goblins have other ideas about how to deal with ancient stone doors. Blow em the hell up. They tried to contact their explosive expert within the collective 2 3 4! and actually succeeded! Not that they needed the expert to make explosives, he was just the very best at it.

Second Lieutenant From The Right, Tround Boomer looked at the various bits of information on the door, thought about it for a while, then simply said: "Just make big boom. Simple easy times. Desert and ruins means good boom making materials, no problem getting for smart gobbies. Teaching small gobbies about big boom making easy times for me. Gunna do it for a bit."

And so he did, teaching their new small table brethren with the simple methods that the goblins use to teach each other. This was the easy part, they also needed materials, but ruins usually had some good stuff for easy basic gob bombs. So Gobinacious sent one of the small table goblin parties to loot the ruins for bomb making materials specifically. (Free Action: Set Goblins to scavenge ruins, gain 1 Scavenge, immediately used to make Big Gobbies Booms).

Since they were planning on setting up inside the dungeon for the long term, they kept to small camps that didn't take much to build, but also were pretty hard to defend. A couple of times some bands of goblins got killed by various beasts of the wild. While it was an easy matter to just spam the "make more goblins" button, Gobinacious was getting tired of mashing it. So instead he decided to teach the small table goblins a thing or two about working as a team. Goblins as a whole are usually very individualistic, but existing as a collective had made GOB unusually good at group tactics, a skill they wanted to pass on to their little brethren:

King Norman whisper a task to his ghost knight and it flew westward to perform its task. In the meantime, the king have a speech for the people:

"Hear me, people of this wonderful nation! You speaks of treasures and gems, but what is for you and your family and children to gain but more wealth that is already in abundance?

Indeed, there is somethng that you can gain beside mere wealth, and even rarer than treasure of the world!

Honor and prestige! It it something that will lives on forever on your family names! Your children will be respected, your ancestors will be proud! No wealth can command the respect that come from valor and might! "

The king's loyal ghost knight returns with the head of the great griffin beast and lift it up high for all to sees as the king continues:

"Bear witness at glory! You can show other your gem and wealth, or you can mount the head of the beast you slay on display for all to awe and woo many maidens! What better treasure that this? Join now! And my Royal Knight who easily slayed the Griffin will make you into a REAL MAN!"

...they shall march out of my laboratory and sweep away every adversary, every creed, every nation, until the very planet is in the loving grip of the Pax Bisonica. And then peace will reign, and the world, and all humanity, shall bow to me in humble gratitude...

Cue slammed against the seat in a metronomic sort of way in a fascimile of furious laughter as the hopes and dreams of the miners were drowned in lava. Hilarious! Ahaha!

...

A moment passed.

Cue was bored. It bounced about, pushing buttons at random, trying to wring out some unexpected amusement from the thing. Hmm, or perhaps that was the wrong way to go about things? It could still mess with the locals after all. Ohhhh, maybe it could do the old switcheroo prank, which was always funny? Haha, yes! It would pick up the fat and content leftsiders, and then the famished, work-broken rightsiders, and swap around their entire populations!

Hehe, genius!

Troublesome to spam buttons to cause some HILARIOUS glitch in the simulation: 3d6= 10 Telekinesis to pick up and swap around the Leftsider and Rightsider populations: 3d6= 7

Oh no! Pippin looked on in horror as his little people were mauled by a griffin. By the looks of it, it wasn't just the Rightside people who were hungry in that desolate place. Perhaps he had made a mistake in assuming what their needs were? Yes, the Rightsiders were starving. But they were also lacking safety. What good would a filled stomach do them, if they could not hold off the invaders of the wild?

He zoomed around the map for source materials to make weapons and armour out of, but found little of use. Pippin doubted his people's ability to pick up and throw around large boulders, and judging by the fact they seemed to flee from the recently erupted volcano he didn't like his chances of weaponizing lava either.

Pippin was about to give up, when an idea struck him. Maybe he could weaponize cactii? While there weren't that many of them, the needles of the longer specimen could be used to make pointy daggers, or perhaps spearheads? It was worth a try at least. He selected a single cactus, and pressed the 'dessicate' button. A heap of salt fell from the sky onto the prickly plant, which slowly started to wither -- hopefully just leaving its hardened needles behind.

Having witnessed more than one pub fight, the orc knew fully well that simply having a good weapon wasn't a recipe for success. What mattered most was having an unbreakable spirit; to never give up, rebound when they knock you down. And so he selected another group of Rightsiders, pressed a button to open up a communication channel (how did he not notice THAT one earlier?), and started barking words of encouragement.

"Right, you lot. You wuz hurt by a griffon, right. And you wunna get back at the beasts of the wild for your loss, roight? Well, I can help. Here's wut you do... First, hold yer arms up like THIS, then punch like THAT..."